Seattle-area prices back to July 2005 levels

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, March 30, 2009

Seattle-area house prices posted record declines in January, bringing them back to levels not seen since July 2005, according to a new report.

The typical house in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties was worth 15 percent less in January than it was a year earlier and 3.6 percent less than in December, according to Standard & Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. The year-to-year drop was the 12th straight record for the index, which goes back to the start of 1990, while the monthly decline tied the record set in December.

Seattle ranked ninth out of 20 areas S&P tracks for annual decline and 13th for monthly drop. Area prices have fallen 19.7 percent from their July 2007 peak.

S&P's 20-city composite posted a record annual decline of 19 percent and was down 2.8 percent from December. No area posted a monthly or annual gain, while 13 had record annual declines, 14 fell by more than 10 percent and nine were down more than 20 percent.

"There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data," David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's Index committee, said in a statement. "Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path."

Patrick Newport, U.S. economist for the analysis firm IHS Global Insight, called the report "a reminder that housing is still in deep recession."

Recent reported increases in new and existing home sales, and housing permits and starts covered February and March, after the period in the latest S&P report, Newport noted. "Therefore, it is possible that the market hit bottom in January and is starting to improve."

He said Global Insight was not ready to make that call, because recent weather swings have distorted data.

The S&P report gauges market movement by tracking repeat transactions of specific houses, rather than depending on what happens to sell in any given month. The latest report from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service put the median King County house sales price at $375,000 in February -- down 12.8 percent from a year earlier, 2 percent from January and 22 percent from the peak of $481,000 in July 2007.

S&P's middle price tier, $271,524 to $395,118, posted the smallest drops, 2.6 percent from December and 13.5 percent from a January 2008. The values of lower-priced homes were down 3.9 percent from December and 17.4 percent from a year earlier. More-expensive houses posted monthly and annual declines of 4.2 percent and 14.8 percent, respectively.

S&P's 20-city index is now back to levels last seen in September 2003 and has fallen 29 percent from its peak in July 2006.

The smallest declines were 4.9 percent from a year earlier, in Dallas, and 1.2 percent from December, in Charlotte. Phoenix posted the largest annual and monthly drops, 35 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.

The only "marginally positive" trend S&P noted was that January's year-to-year drops were smaller than December's in Cleveland, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, while Las Vegas was one of six areas with somewhat smaller monthly declines.

Values have dropped more than 30 percent from their peak in nine areas and more than 40 percent in five: Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco and San Diego.